[HN Gopher] Expensive energy may have killed more Europeans than...
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       Expensive energy may have killed more Europeans than Covid-19 last
       winter
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 65 points
       Date   : 2023-05-10 21:56 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
        
       | mavu wrote:
       | Can't possibly be secondary effects of Covid-19, right?
       | 
       | Because that would mean we would have to acknowledge long covid,
       | and possible immune system damage of repeated infections.
       | 
       | That won't do at all, people might want not to die for the
       | ecconomy.
        
         | goatlover wrote:
         | You can't separate the economy from the well being of people.
        
           | drekipus wrote:
           | Good point
        
           | anonporridge wrote:
           | When robots do all the work you can.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | neurobama wrote:
         | The evidence-based research on long COVID is limited and of
         | mixed quality. From what I've seen, there are significant gaps
         | in experimental methodology and a lot of studies based on
         | extremely subjective surveys which don't effectively filter co-
         | morbities. I would strongly caution you to examine the data
         | before adopting a strong position on the issue and applying it
         | to potentially unrelated phenomena.
        
       | pasttense01 wrote:
       | People should have been able to adapt to the need to use less
       | heating energy. 1. Wear warmer clothing. 2. Very substantially
       | cut down on the portion of the house you live in and consequently
       | need to heat...
        
       | renewiltord wrote:
       | It appears very fortunate that India has increased oil exports to
       | Europe. May have reduced this impact somewhat and saved lives.
        
       | julienb_sea wrote:
       | The movement towards renewables and away from reliable,
       | inexpensive fossil generation will continue this trend in years
       | to come. Gas generation is increasingly economically unviable
       | with so much competition from renewables, but it remains
       | necessary in order to provide baseload capacity, fill gaps when
       | renewables are underperforming, and handle significant energy
       | demand (e.g. an extreme winter storm).
        
       | dougmwne wrote:
       | It certainly seems to have killed several businesses in my city.
        
       | mustacheemperor wrote:
       | Indirect victims of Russia's invasion of its sovereign neighbors.
       | 
       | It is so unfortunate that Europe became dependent on Russian
       | energy.
       | 
       | I was too young to remember these events firsthand, but learning
       | about Grozny in the history books, I am mystified that the world
       | was so eager to cooperate with Russia such a short time later.
       | Putin completely destroyed a cosmopolitan city killing thousands
       | of civilians. The Russian military offered the defenders safe
       | passage out of the city and mined the road overnight before they
       | left.
       | 
       | Just over a decade later Nordstream 1 turned on Europe's money
       | tap for Russia. And now we suffer the consequences.
       | 
       | HN, this is semi-off topic, and emotional, but this war makes me
       | so sad. Some of my partner's family fled across Ukraine from this
       | invasion. The generational farm she visited as a kid is only a
       | memory now: I will never see it. When we first started dating we
       | talked about how nice it would be visit one day, and now it's
       | been destroyed. Her grandmother wanted to live out the rest of
       | her days in Kyiv and instead had to flee through Poland for DC
       | where she is confined in a condo with my mother in law, watching
       | her country be destroyed on the news.
        
         | thriftwy wrote:
         | Somebody has to supply your energy. Is Bashar Assad a better
         | option, or perhaps Saudis are better? Islamic republic or Iran
         | perhaps?
         | 
         | If you don't like how Russia handled Ichkeria, you are not
         | alone because Russians have exactly that feeling about
         | Yugoslavia as well as Iraq.
        
         | anonporridge wrote:
         | They're ultimately victims of their own political leaders who
         | increased dependency on Russian gas in order to irrationally
         | kill nuclear fission energy.
         | 
         | Anti-nuclear energy activists will likely go down in history as
         | villains.
        
       | deanCommie wrote:
       | https://archive.is/5VEZE
        
         | neonate wrote:
         | http://web.archive.org/web/20230510215922/https://www.econom...
        
       | 110889725 wrote:
       | Btw, the title means that: this past winter, more people died due
       | to "expensive energy" than due to Covid-19.
       | 
       | It's not the case that more people died last winter due to
       | "expensive energy" than due to Covid-19 in total (see
       | https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105).
        
         | jahnu wrote:
         | A very important detail! Deaths from covid are way way down
         | mainly because of vaccines.
        
           | preciz wrote:
           | Why is HN so eager to cheer vaccines wherever it can? This is
           | not a Hollywood movie where you get super powers 5 seconds
           | after a vaccine but the real world where in the middle of a
           | pandemic a vaccine is introduced based on fake efficacy data
           | which is then makes billions of dollars for the producer
           | company which is connected to the media which creates panic
           | so the product basically gets mandated and masks get forced
           | on 2 year olds while kids can't go to school and live a
           | normal life.
           | 
           | Vaccines should be treated as other medical products and
           | people who worship them needs some basics about statistical
           | fraud. Let the downvotes come.
        
         | jupp0r wrote:
         | It's technically also not true that people were killed by
         | "Expensive energy".
        
           | usrusr wrote:
           | Makes me wonder how many people have died because of terrible
           | headlines...
        
             | drekipus wrote:
             | That reminds me of the time I saw a local newspaper with
             | the front page headline
             | 
             | "Fatal distraction kills driver"
             | 
             | But with the irony of a red square covering 80% of the
             | page, as a Foxtel ad. Lemme see if I can find it..
        
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       (page generated 2023-05-10 23:00 UTC)